Thursday, March 12, 2009

We Look Back At 1981 Flooding In Our Area And The Current Flooding Going On Now!

Hey there your probably thinking what am I looking at? Well, Thanks to Teri, for sending this. It is a few newspaper clippings from the great flooding we seen back in 1981 here in the area as at lease six inches of rain fell overnight. The clipping above is what used to be a parking lot for Mary Lou doughnuts. Yes the flood waters as you can see above did like a waterfall at the south 4th St, site. However that was not the only place that got flooded out bad! Take a look at what once was a flooded out Beck Lane between 19th and 20th streets. Yes, you can see hundreds went into the water it was like a BIG swimming pool. Now normally we would tell people to stay out of the water do to safety reasons like we are with the flooding going on right now! But that did not stop these people here is another below.Kids got to do a little diving in the water. This was also on Beck Lane. And not something you see everyday I might add. Diving off of the car roof tops that is :o) Thanks again Teri for these Great clippings! I don't know a lot of how things where back around 1981 but I will now be doing some more research on this! ;) I do however know that 1981 was one of the wettest years in more areas then Indiana. Here is something I found below.

The summer months were plagued with floods in the North-Central States. Illinois and Indiana were the hardest hit, as rains began in May and continued through July. Flooding was widespread from Wisconsin to Kentucky, with the most severe floods in scattered areas. Thirteen counties dispersed over Illinois, Ohio, and western Pennsylvania were declared Federal disaster areas because of flooding in mid-June. Agriculture in Illinois and Indiana suffered substantially from the storms and resulting floods.

Well, the good news is that Back Lane does not look like what we see above! However there is still a lot of flooding going on at this time. And it is very dangerous! A lot of people have already had to move to higher grounds which is good news as that means they are heeding the warnings! Now currently the Wabash is at 21.83ft and is expected to fall slowly but surely! We are expected to be around 20.5ft by Friday morning 2:am.....This is better news as we will keep falling slowly but surely.....

Another thing is the Flash Flood Warning for Carroll, and White, counties has been lifted. However the flood warning is still in effect for our areas. Here is the waning I have posted below..........

...THE FLOOD WARNING CONTINUES FOR THE FOLLOWING RIVERS INILLINOIS...INDIANA... DES PLAINES RIVER AT RUSSELL AFFECTING LAKE COUNTY DES PLAINES RIVER NEAR DES PLAINES AFFECTING COOK COUNTY FOX RIVER AT ALGONQUIN AFFECTING KANE AND MCHENRY COUNTIES FOX RIVER AT DAYTON AFFECTING LA SALLE COUNTY IROQUOIS RIVER NEAR FORESMAN AFFECTING NEWTON COUNTY IROQUOIS RIVER AT IROQUOIS AFFECTING IROQUOIS COUNTY IROQUOIS RIVER NEAR CHEBANSE AFFECTING IROQUOIS AND KANKAKEE COUNTIES.
KANKAKEE RIVER AT MOMENCE AFFECTING KANKAKEE COUNTY VERMILION RIVER NEAR LEONORE AFFECTING LA SALLE COUNTY DES PLAINES RIVER NEAR GURNEE AFFECTING LAKE COUNTY FOX RIVER AT MONTGOMERY AFFECTING KANE AND KENDALL COUNTIES IROQUOIS RIVER AT RENSSELAER AFFECTING JASPER COUNTY KANKAKEE RIVER AT DUNNS BRIDGE AFFECTING PORTER COUNTY KANKAKEE RIVER NEAR KOUTS AFFECTING JASPER AND PORTER COUNTIES KANKAKEE RIVER AT SHELBY AFFECTING LAKE AND NEWTON COUNTIES KANKAKEE RIVER NEAR WILMINGTON AFFECTING GRUNDY AND WILL COUNTIES.
RIVER LEVELS REMAIN HIGH ACROSS PORTIONS OF NORTHERN ILLINOIS ANDNORTHWEST INDIANA DUE TO RECENT RAINFALLS.
SAFETY MESSAGE...IF YOU ENCOUNTER A FLOODED ROADWAY...TURN AROUND ANDFIND AN ALTERNATE ROUTE.
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There have been so many reports with this mess of flooding. And right now the BEST thing to do if you have been effected by the flooding is to stay to the higher ground if that means a friends house or even a hotel and white it out! As well as not driving or flooded roads because you wont make it! And more flood deaths happen in cars. Even more at night because you can be driving and not even know you are about to head for water. Remember the words (TURN AROUND DON'T DROWN)Now how about the weather we seen last Tuesday? Take a look above at the high gusty wind speeds we seen around the area. We can see the highest winds did stay south of our area where they where closer to the main line of storms with Indianapolis coming in with a 51 mph wind gust! Lafayette was not to far behind with a peak gust to 40 mph. The good news was there was not any real wind damage reported around the area.....Rainfall however was HIGH everywhere!
Take a look at those rainfall amounts. Remington coming in with 2.14" inches followed by Rochester, and Rensselaer, still in that two inch range. Lafayette coming in with an inch and a half. Rainfall was very heavy around the whole area and I was talking with my friend who let me know she had rainfall coming down so hard that it looked like someone had buckets full just dumping them off the roof! And this was seen all over.

Another thing to talk about was a lot of peoples rain gauges was freezing up when going out to check them yesterday morning Mine was as well. This is because we dropped from a high yesterday of around 65* degrees to a low of 28* degrees..... And was a bit of a shocker as we walked out. Well we are going to see a few more cool days along with dry partly cloudy to mostly sunny skies this week before we start to warm a bit by this weekend. Not much but still nice. DRY is looking good! We need it and I don't think we will see to much rain for a little while that is! This will give the rivers some much needed time to fall..........

Here is your Quick Cast 5 Day Forecast posted below. Have a great day and if anything changes weather wise and or with the rivers I will have an update! Thanks for reading I will see you soon....................

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Justin, thanks for sharing my newpaper clippings,a bit of History on Lafayette flooding, that many do not know of.

I remember another flood, put I was very young, and do not have photos

Good news about the rivers slowly going down, and then the clean up:((.

Prayers!

Teri